5 years after 5-Day War: Russia and Georgia bury the hatchet

Georgian goods such as wine and mineral water are being sold in Russian stores again – a fact as surprising today as it was ordinary before the war in South Ossetia in 2008 and subsequent severing of almost all relations between the nations.

And it is not only businesspeople - Russian and Georgian
officials are cautiously but eagerly looking for common ground
and suggest measures as radical as the possible abolition of the
visa regime amid the absence of respective diplomatic missions in
Moscow and Tbilisi.

The changes are apparent. But even as defeated and bitter Georgia
is admitting mistakes and offering compromise, can we see such
readiness in international public opinion, let alone in the
stance of the mainstream mass media?

The hard start

The war of 2008 started suddenly (even though there were
warnings, many people chose not to believe in the possibility of
open military conflict), and then escalated even faster on the
tails of the initial coverage of the conflict in the West, which
was startlingly biased.

In the early hours of August 8, 2008, the Georgian military
started to shell the South Ossetian capital, Tskhinval, with
artillery and multiple-launch missile systems, violating the
earlier-reached ceasefire agreement. The targets included a
Russian peacekeepers’ base and residential districts of the city,
causing huge losses among civilians – according to South Ossetian
officials between 1,500 and 2,000 non-combatants were killed in
this attack.

In the afternoon of the same day, then-Russian President Dmitry
Medvedev ordered the military to start the ‘Operation to force
Georgia to peace’. Russian aircraft destroyed Georgian military
bases and airfields, and Russian tanks rolled into the republic,
quickly ousting the Georgian forces and forcing them far into
Georgian territory, stopping just short of the capital, Tbilisi.
Infantry and paratroopers followed, securing control on the
ground. By August 12 the military stage of the operation was
over.

The military casualties from the Russian side were over 70 people
dead, while the Georgian military said they lost over 150
servicemen. Hundreds of people were wounded.

On August 16, Medvedev signed the plan for a peace settlement
that was earlier signed by leaders of Georgia, South Ossetia and
Abkhazia.

CNN used captions such as ‘Russia invades Georgia’, ‘Russia
attacks neighbor’ and ‘Georgia faces Russia onslaught’, while
showing footage of the South Ossetian capital under heavy
Georgian shelling.

Others presented the story in a similar fashion with headlines
including “Georgia 'overrun' by Russian troops as full-scale
ground invasion begins” (Daily Mail), “Georgia says phonetaps
show Russia launched war” (Reuters).

Moreover, a look into the diplomatic cables that became
accessible thanks to WikiLeaks shows that even the US and British
embassies provided their foreign ministries with mass media
reports, with little or no analysis into the real situation and
its possible consequences.

It took a long time and a huge effort to start the changes. Only
after the European Union’s commission released the results of its
special research in September 2009 was the mass media
compelled to agree with its conclusions – it was Georgia that
started the attack, civilians and peacekeepers were killed and
Russia’s retaliation was a part of its peacekeeping obligations.

New Georgian leaders aim at reconciliation

The Georgian leadership and President Mikhail Saakashvili
continued to accuse the Russian side of all possible sins. At
that time it looked a like a no-lose political move – with all
relations between Russia and Georgia completely severed and
Russian leaders flatly denying any possibility of future talks
with the aggressors, Saakashvili could appeal to the nationalist
sentiments of voters without fear of consequences.

Or so it seemed until in 2011 billionaire businessman Bidzina
Ivanishvili entered the Georgian politics with the agenda to stop
confrontation and try to make peace with the northern neighbors
to mutual benefit.

In 2012, Ivanishvili’s party Georgian Dream won the parliamentary
elections, effectively ousting Saakashvili from political life
and raising questions of an investigation with possible future
trial of the president and his allies over charges of criminal
negligence.

Ivanishvili partially maintains the nationalist stance, refusing
to recognize South Ossetia and Abkhazia as independent states –
any different behavior would be close to political suicide in an
extremely proud nation that still remembers the crushing defeat
from a much stronger neighbor – but even these cautious attempts
at reconciliation have been welcomed by senior Russian officials.

Early this week Zurab Abashidze, Georgia’s plenipotentiary in
charge of relations with Russia, voiced hope that the neighboring
nations could not only restore diplomatic relations, but even
scrap the visa regime in the future. The countries have already
passed the first phase, involving the resolution of practical
issues related to trade, transport and other economic issues, he
said.

In late July, Prime Minister Ivanishvili himself told the press
that he stood for the restoration of diplomatic relations and
hoped to meet with Russian President Vladimir Putin. The Georgian
leader praised the resumption of trade relations and added that
Russia and Georgia were planning to restore direct flights and a
simplified visa regime, improving the situation step by step.

In this week’s interview Ivanishvili resolutely ruled out the
possibility that Georgia would again use military force to
attempt to resolve territorial issues.

Russia supports friendship and pragmatism

Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev gave an extensive
interview to RT earlier this week in which he approved of the
Georgian authorities’ pragmatic stance and announced that Russia
would welcome the return of Georgian diplomats to Moscow.

Also this week, Medvedev spoke to Georgian TV channel Rustavi and
acknowledged these positive signals, assuring the public that
there was always a chance for normalization of mutual relations.

However, he set one condition - Georgia must recognize and accept
what happened in 2008.

“This most regrettable page of our relations of recent years
will be turned and gone together with disappearance of
Saakashvili and some other people from the political scene,”
Medvedev told the channel.

But as Georgia and Russia are taking the complicated steps to
turn the page, the mainstream mass media hardly give any coverage
to these attempts. The reports from the regions now boil down to
travel notes (with a fair share of Georgian nostalgia over the
lost territories) and rare news reports such as the recent
accounts of NATO Secretary-General Anders Fogh Rasmussen, who in
early June chided the Russian peacekeeping force for putting
fences on the border with Georgia.

‘Ossetian American’ insight

Born in Tampa, Florida, Joe Mestas is married to an Ossetian
woman and has traveled in South Ossetia for about a decade.
In August 2008 he was in South Ossetia and personally
witnessed the war. His wife and daughter were visiting
relatives in a small town near the Russian border and were
caught in an air raid by Georgian bomber aircraft.

These events caused Mestas to devote himself to spreading the
information about Georgia’s role in starting the war and on
the real situation in the republic. He stayed in the region
for about a year, despite dangers and hardships, and worked
as a photo journalist for South Ossetian mass media in the
hope that his collection of pictures and eyewitness accounts
would prove to the Western public that Georgia was
responsible for the war and for attacks on civilians.

After receiving a South Ossetian passport in 2006, Joe Mestas
holds dual citizenship, which allows him to travel to Russia
without obtaining a visa.

RT asked Joe Mestas - a US citizen with South Ossetian
connections who personally witnessed the 2008 war and who held a
personal campaign to educate the world about it – for his
thoughts on the anniversary.

RT: Can you see a change in both public opinion and
mass media rhetoric over the Russian-Georgian War of 2008? If so,
when do you think this attitudinal shift began?

Joe Mestas: In the United states they no longer cover the
story, preferring to quote the politicians like John McCain,
whose statements do not differ from what he said right after the
war. He is an extremely pro-Saakashvili person and encourages
Georgia’s entry into NATO - the sooner the better.

RT: And with more recent news, like several major
conflicts hitting the headlines over the past five years, in
particular the situation in Libya and Syria, can you spot some
similar patterns in Western mass media coverage of such news and
the 2008 war?

JM: This pattern is called double standards. I cannot see
why Western countries make it look OK when their countries help
insurgencies in Arab nations, yet criticize Russia for helping
South Ossetia and Abkhazia to fight what was a foreign invasion.

RT: Are you aware of any reporters who regret, at least
partially and in private conversations, their initial coverage of
the 2008 war?

JM: No. I have not heard of any regrets or corrections and
this is sad. Every non-mainstream news report from the region is
still hushed and Saakashvili is still speaking to mass media,
blaming everything on Russia.

RT: Would you call your own educational campaign a
success? Is it possible that public opinion in the West could
shift radically? What would be necessary to facilitate a further
shift in perception regarding the events?

JM: I would like to believe that my attempt has made a
difference. What I know is that several hundred thousand people
have read my stories and interviews. I have not received any
feedback, but I still think it was important. The job is not
finished. I will continue my fight until the United States
officially recognize[s] South Ossetia and Abkhazia.

One-sidedness replaced by standoffishness

Among ordinary people and politicians from Russia, Georgia and
South Ossetia seeking the settlement of the conflict, it might
seem surprising that Western officials and journalists no longer
find the region worthy of attention. One possible explanation was
offered by Dmitry Medvedev in his interview with Rustavi TV.

“I have discussed all these issues with foreign partners … and
in private they all expressed one common position – ‘we
understand that there was a military aggression, we are not going
to talk about it but please settle it between yourselves and try
to calm down your adversary and reach the situation in which no
one suffers.’”

As we can see now, it was not this approach, but the radical
change of the Georgian regime that allowed the humble result we
can see today to be reached. But there is still time for the
world to change the attitude to the problem and help bring more
stability to the region.